Trapped ions have been one of the most powerful approaches in quantum computing, demonstrating world record performance, long coherence times and long-range connectivity. However, these systems face a fundamental challenge: they struggle to dramatically scale up the number of physical qubits, relying on one-dimensional chains with hard physical limitations that prevent scaling. ZuriQ, an ETH Zurich spinoff, is rethinking the trapped-ion quantum computers, unlocking the path to thousands of qubits.
Founded by Pavel Hrmo, Tobias Sägesser, and Shreyans Jain in the ETH labs of Prof. Home, ZuriQ aims to build a quantum computer with thousands of qubits based on its ion trapping technology that changes how ions are trapped, moving from purely electric fields to a combination of electric and magnetic fields. This allows ions to move in all spatial directions like an airplane, while competitor ions are more like cars driving along roads and through junctions. As the number of ions grows, bottlenecks in information flow will form on the trap chip. The freedom to move the ions in the ZuriQ approach is the key step to unlock the performance of these systems at scale.
Unlike existing quantum computer scaleups Quantinuum and IonQ, who build on decades-old technological blueprints, ZuriQ has redesigned the fundamental computational building block from the ground up, enabling a much steeper rate of growth in computing power. Importantly, the re-design maintains compatibility with the proven control techniques developed by the trapped-ion academic community.
The seed investment of $4.2 million sets the startup on track to demonstrate its first prototype late this year that will have dozens of ions in a reconfigurable 2-d grid. Led by Founderful, the round further investors such as attracted SquareOne, First Momentum Ventures, OnSight Ventures and QAI Ventures.
“We have been highly impressed by the speed of execution of ZuriQ’s founding team and the pace of progress towards technical milestones that have been elusive in the community so far”, said investor Pascal Mathis, Partner at Founderful.
"The space for few-qubit devices that act as toy models is already saturated," said Pavel Hrmo, CEO of ZuriQ. "Devices with 20-40 qubits won't drive large profits. We need to focus on long-term scalability and demonstrate that our platform can grow the number of ions in two dimensions faster than our competitors."
Looking ahead, ZuriQ is building toward the thousands of qubits required for industrially useful quantum computing. The company aims to become the flagship provider of quantum computing worldwide offering both direct system sales and cloud access, while fulfilling a strategic national priority for Switzerland. The systems will be continuously upgraded as the hardware matures, with particular focus on applications requiring high data privacy, such as financial portfolio optimization or drug design.
(Press release/RAN)